C4SS trustee Gary Chartier will discuss “Libertarians for Redistribution” with participants in a Students for Liberty webinar on Tuesday, December 11. Chartier argues that, while statist redistribution is undesirable, stateless redistribution–effected by market exchange, solidarity, the rectification of past injustice, and the homesteading of assets acquired through state engrossment or by tax-supported firms–can be a valuable means of addressing inequities and reducing economic vulnerability and insecurity and can achieve some (albeit not all) the goals of statist redistribution.

Libertarians ordinarily look at the idea of income and wealth redistribution very skeptically. And they should—if redistribution by the state for the purpose of equalizing incomes, boosting productivity, or achieving other macro-level goals is in view. But a number of the goals of statist programs of redistribution can, perhaps surprisingly, be served by a distinctively libertarian approach to redistribution, focusing on the rectification of past injustices, the elimination of privilege, solidarity and mutual aid, and market exchange.